Health and lifestyle blog looking at all the latest in health and fitness, with a special focus on staying active.

04/23/2012

Why PMI? Reasons more are choosing health insurance...

Healthcare, it seems, is just one of those things that's always in the news. In fact, if you were very clever and had some kind of statistics or mathematics degree, you could probably estimate the amount of column inches that healthcare news and opinion fills every day, then calculate the worth of it as an ongoing story in the form of a percentage of media value as a whole. This would of course serve no practical purpose. But what it would do is show just what an incredibly important thung a helathcare system is. So it's no wonder that we care as much as we do - and that our care is mirrored by the volume of media coverage.

Recently, the American health care system's been the centre of a lot of talk - as the president's controversial Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) floats unsteadily on an ocean of uncertainty. And regardless of whether the good ship ACA eventually makes it securely to the far shore, it's fair to say that - whether it stays afloat or is replaced by another vessel - a status quo where 50 million people were uninsured was never going to be allowed to continue in a first world country.

And how foreign the UK healthcare system must seem to the people who live on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. A single-payer system that offers universal care, amd is free? It must sound like something from, well, a far-off place. But of course the UK's system isn't perfect - with its own controversies regarding reform, rand problems such as the recently reported waiting list growth.

More and more people in the UK now choose private medical insurance (PMI). There are many reasons why people decide to purchase PMI - survey results point to the major ones being the above-mentioned waiting lists, plus concerns about hospital cleanliness. PMI in the UK doesn't of course cover every eventuality - A&E admissions and treatment, for instance, don't fall under your PMI. Another main reason for people getting PMI is that many employers provide it for their staff on the basis that employees are the company's most important asset and their health is crucial to optimal business effectiveness.

Cost of PMI is based on a number of things such as your age and your level of health - and of course depending on what cover you're purchasing you can often find affordable options to suit your requirements - in other words tailoring a policy so that you're not paying for anything you don't require.

In terms of where and how to buy PMI, it's probably easier than it's ever been to get a quote - insurers such as AXA PPP healthcare, and Health On Line plus others have easy to understand websites with all the relevant info on their services plus you can get a health quite in just a few minutes online.